Many people worldwide are familiar with the water experiments by Dr. Matsuri Emoto, who discovered that ‘good energies’ (such as positive words and images, harmonious music etc) created harmonious structures in water molecules, which he froze and observed under a microscope.

He also observed the opposite – that negative energies, such as unkind words, aggressive music and negative images, created very chaotic and disharmonious structures in the water molecules. Essentially, he proved that water is highly receptive and easily influenced by all energies. 

So what about our body which is composed of nearly 70% water? We are also very much influenced by the energies around us. And not only the energies around us… The thoughts that we give our attention to within our mind are influencing every cell of our body, often without us realising it, because every cell of our body contains water, which is simply reacting to the energy created by thoughts. 

You do not have to be a genius to observe that negative thoughts simply create a “negative” and disharmonious energy within our body. We can feel it. In fact, this is what emotions are. What we call “emotion” is the pool of digestive fluids in our stomach reacting to the energy of our thoughts, thus creating a strongly positive or negative feeling in our gut. Our gut feelings – liquid responding to the energy of thought.

Essentially, beyond the body, we could look at ourselves as an energy field. Whatever is the predominant energy in our ‘field’ is what we feel predominantly. Obviously, our thoughts influence our energy field, as does music and communications with others (which is why we should always speak positively, and never criticise or gossip about other people).

Food also massively influences our energy field, because each individual food has its own energy ‘signature’. As an example, take a lettuce leaf – there is a certain neutrality to it. It does not have a stimulating energy – like sweet foods do – and it does not have a heavy, grounding energy – like proteins and cereal grains do. It has a kind of peaceful energy, like most green vegetables do (and non-sweet fruits too, like avocado or cucumber). Sweet foods (including fruits) have a more ‘fiery’ energy field, and thus when we consume them our energy field is influenced to feel more this way. We can feel more easily irritated, and easily lose patience with others. You can see this most obviously in children, when they consume sugar. They become happy for a while (sugar being a drug) but then soon they become very irritable and moody, as the sugar leaves their system, and they feel the inner residue of the substance in their body.

Heavy (& cooked) foods have a ‘denser’ energy field, making us feel the same way when we consume them – tired perhaps and a bit heavy. This is why I always recommend a raw food diet to someone who is experiencing a lot of tiredness. And in the same way, the antidote for someone who is too ‘fiery’ is to remove sugary foods from their diet and eat more calming, soothing foods like greens vegetables and non-sweet fruits. 

I have often heard people say “I am angry and I don’t know why” or “I feel tired & depressed”. I always ask them what the last food they ate was, and it usually proves to be what is influencing the way that they are feeling. And if we eat the same foods (e.g. heavy or rich cooked foods) day after day, we might go and complain to the doctor that we are suffering from chronic fatigue or depression, without even considering it could be our diet. Almost all energy imbalances (including emotional ones) can be solved with a change in diet.

Now, obviously, food is not the only thing that is influencing us to feel the way we feel, even though it is a very major contributory. What about anxious thought? What does that do to us? It creates tension in every cell of our body, because when the mind focusses on any thought, it contracts and “narrows in” on that thought. One thought can sometimes become our entire reality, and if that thought is a negative one, this limited perspective is mirrored in the body, and we experience a sense of contraction, tension and limitation in our entire being. People call this ‘fear’. The antidote? To relax. When we relax, we are making a physical statement that we feel safe, that we are not threatened. And why should we feel threatened by thought? It is insanity, but we seem to trust our thoughts so very much that we will let them make us feel completely dreadful! But the good news is that fear disappears instantly in relaxation. This is why relaxation is at the heart of all meditation practices, usually in partnership with focussing the mind, so that it does not get pulled in to further thought processes. 

So what else happens when we relax? Our entire experience changes; our energy changes, our feeling changes, our perspective changes. Everything within us changes in fact, and moves more into alignment with an experience of harmony. Also, our mind becomes less pressurised, because all the energy that was previously bouncing around in our thoughts is now allowed to flow into our body, as more inner space is created through relaxation. As energy flows more naturally through the body, we feel the good feelings which we are supposed to feel, just by being alive.

You see, we so easily forget the state of harmony which is our natural way of being. We forget it’s deeply vital importance in our lives, and we get caught up with pursuing other things, in hope that we might feel some peace at the end of it all. But peace is not a destination. Peace is the way to go through life. It is entirely possible to go through life peacefully, no matter what we are doing.

Yet when peace is forgotten, doing and achieving becomes our priority, and stress is created in the process. For some people, this become a way of life, and there is no time to relax, to feel a sense of inner harmony and gratitude for the way things are. But it is vital – absolutely vital – to our well being and happiness to do so. We all know this, yet we get caught up in other energy fields which do not have such a harmonious feeling. Most of the time, we get caught up in the energy of thought, and the effect thoughts have on our body becomes our usual way of feeling, with emotional turbulence a common theme in many people’s lives. 

This is why it is crucial that we have periods during the day of no-thought, where we are just aware of being here, free of mental chatter. Then we remember the simple peace and inner stillness that we feel when we are not being driven on and on by endless thought processes. Silence, peace and inner harmony are a soothing balm to the heart and soul; so deeply rejuvenating and nourishing. We must put experiencing them at the very top of our priority list. Because without them, what are we left with? Nothing of any real value at all. We feel empty, unfulfilled, sometimes even isolated and alone. Everyone knows these feelings, and everyone knows deep inside what they truly need, beyond material acquisition, beyond material security, and beyond mental “knowledge.”

We need to know peace, become deeply intimate with it, let it fully enter our lives and our hearts, so it can fully nourish us as only peace can. Then we remember the deep value of life. Then we feel the indescribable beauty of being alive.

So we must be very practical about this, rather than floating away on nice thoughts about peace and harmony. We must embody these energies, feel them – not later, but now, because this is the moment to fill with harmony and happiness. This is the portal right here, right now, to a very familiar realm of light, clarity amd positive energy. This moment is a gift, full of the potential of opening our eyes to life’s radiant light and transcendental beauty. This can happen right now. How?…

The first step is always to relax… because the moment you relax, more ease is present in the body, more harmony, more good feelings. It is a very obvious first step, and the most important one too. Then we remember that it actually feels good to be alive! There is no stress, no pressure. Just a sense of goodness and harmony within the body. This is our natural state, and simple relaxation can bring us back into alignment with it, in any moment.

If we don’t relax our body, we start chasing other ways of feeling good inside: satisfying foods, entertainment and distraction, social or sexual interactions and so on. Yet we need none of them. They create a dependence on external circumstances for our peace, and if we cannot have one of these experiences we cannot experience our peace.

So, only relaxation is needed. It is also helpful to watch how your mind tries to interfere with your peace, by presenting you with thoughts that create anxious feelings within you. Thoughts about future events, about things you have to do, about what someone else might have said or done that upset you. It really doesn’t matter what the thought is about, it’s primary effect is to create disharmony within you. So in your periods of relaxation, let your mind be focussed so that it doesn’t get pulled into thought at all. What can you focus it upon? Anything that works. For example, your breathing as it flows in and out of your body, or perhaps on some peaceful music, or a single candle flame in front of you. Something that your attention finds it easy to stay with, and return to when your mind wanders. 

Being aware of your breathing is a very helpful tool to becoming more aware of your sense of being, beyond thinking. Breath is like the bridge between the physical and spiritual realm of being. When I say “spiritual” I mean that which you cannot see, hear, taste, smell, touch – the formless aspect of your self – the realm of awareness, consciousness, presence of being. In this space you are untouched  any material disturbance, including thought. Thought is like a wave upon the ocean, whereas you are the ocean itself. You are the space in which all arises and falls, the neutral observer of all creation and destruction. Pure awareness. 

As you relax and restore harmony to your being, you become more aware of this truth. When you are not tangled up in disharmony, in endless cycles of thought and desires, you simply abide with this natural sense of Universal Harmony, which is everywhere and which just so happens to flow through you also. The only question you need to ask yourself is, are you receptive to it? If the answer is ‘no’, you know exactly what to do…

 
Alexander Bell

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